


Rhyiona Prompt Collection

by Pseudonaut



Category: Borderlands (Video Games), Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Universe, F/M, One Shot Collection, Post-Canon, Spoilers, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-11-09 18:52:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11110731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pseudonaut/pseuds/Pseudonaut
Summary: A collection of my all Rhyiona Tumblr prompts. (Still updating)





	1. Rhyiona Zombie Apocalypse AU Thingy

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: http://ao3-pseudonaut.tumblr.com/

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since you asked for writing stuffs, what about a rhyiona zombie apocalypse au thingy?

Risk was a soft luxury, it seemed. Feeling like a slice of heaven in-between the harsh reality of what would happen if even a breath from either one of them was shed or shuddered from trembling frames that once held a plucky and courageous thief and a businessman in over his head. But not referring to them in any past tense was injustice to the nightmare they walked in and had been walking in. They lost everything, a friend, a sister, a rival. In the same boat with nothing to do but paddle. 

“Got any fuel in it?” Fiona asked Rhys, who was tending to a portable gas cooker. Her eyes focusing on rusty nails she held in trembling, gloved finger tips she was securing the doors of the apartment complex they had thoroughly scavenged.

The towering lonely building housed nothing but the memories of homes once filled with everyone from down and out patrons to families and students. All abandoned to head out of dodge since the outbreak. It had been handled well by what governments were able to be held by western powers and only a few major eastern nations. Besides, surviving a zombies apocalypse was practically embedded in culture. But that didn’t mean people would be left behind. The Gortys project had been a overwhelming success in mass containment. People who didn’t make it out were either just like the couple or the dead that crept lazily outside, cannibalizing even themselves if they couldn’t eat.

The man turned dials and adjusted nozzles until a blue flame emerged triumphantly from the depths of the device. “Alright, now we’re talking.” Rhys said enthusiastically, food lighting the moods more than the fire. “So. Found a pan in the crap we dragged in here?”

Fiona rolled her eyes at his mocking. Her plan was solid and probably saved them: Climb to the highest and biggest apartment and take as much as they could from the rooms below into their snug new home. It took four days with barley any rest and a thankfully working elevator to finally get what they could.

“Sure are a lot of couches we took…” He adjusted his makeshift eye-patch and looked around with his only eye left at the littered but large room, multiple rooms branching with more necessities peaking out the door frames. At least it was an effective barricade. Didn’t stop his partner in crime from using a hammer and nails to properly secure it all with wooden boards so rotten they were both shocked that the mass of brown and grey hadn’t exploded in sawdust on contact.

She eventually stopped, sighed and dropped her hammer, moving over to Rhys and sitting on his lap to his amusement.

“An apartment full of seats and you sit on my lap?”

“Of course.” Fiona smiled. 

Rhys couldn’t see but he could tell. 

Reaching behind the man, she grabbed a cast iron frying pan from a box they brought up and placed it on the gas, waiting for it to heat up.

“What are we eating tonight?” 

If it was night, neither of them could tell. Moans and groans from outside the street made them secure the windows, barley any light making it’s way through. It could be a blazing sun or gentle twilight. Neither cared. They just wanted the noises the dead made to end.

Fiona took a tin of beans from a satchel strung over her shoulder, as well as a stick of butter from a fridge two stories down. “Beans. Because clichés save lives.” The woman smiled before kissing the man lightly as her head turned.

“I still wish it didn’t take an apocalypse for us to meet.”

“Hey. Goes to show that not even the world trying to end could stop us…”

They took a moments to relish in the thoughts of all they lost, all they killed to the rhythmic thudding of the dead trying to break into homes nestled in floors far below them.

“I love you.” Rhys sighed.

Fiona added butter to the pan she also used to cut a piece off. Looking on at the melting mix before swallowing hard, feeling comfort in his remaining arm that now wrapped around her.

“I love you too.”


	2. New Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if you are still taking prompts but could you do a tftbl New Years thing?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: http://ao3-pseudonaut.tumblr.com/

New Years weren’t meant to be so somber, but Pandora managed to muddy moods among the natives and stranded alike. Blood thirsty psychos and Vault Hunters were all family, sand up to their necks, constricting and choking. More of the dusted packed air they gasped, the more it filled their mouths. Four family members felt particularly morbid spending their third New Year’s Eve with one another. Sat on flimsly business chairs inside an office wasn’t exactly how they envisioned the celebration. But Rhys, fitted into his ATLAS life, had champagne to share from Eden 5. Or 4. One of the numbers.

The deafening pop of a cork flying across the spacious, space black room didn’t even shift Fiona and Sasha’s nerves. It somehow managed to make Vaughn jump. He was either the same as some money manager on the long dead Helios or survival instincts had always been hidden away in him. The latter wouldn’t have surprised anyone considering how out of place he looked. But then again, they all did except Rhys. 

“Ladies.” He spoke as swiftly as his lavish movements as he poured two tall glasses of the bubbling champagne before handing it to them.

Fiona held the stem of the glass tight in her palm, earning a solemn look from the CEO, realizing how unaccustomed the two women were to anything remotely high class. She looked at him with disgusting, naturally taking his look of sadness as some sick pity. 

“Thank. You.” Her words were bitterly bitten through tightly locked teeth.

Sasha took her glass, holding it slightly more gracefully than her sister, smiling at Rhys as she did. “Thanks, Rhys…”

He regained composure and smiled at the pair before filled two more glasses for himself and his best friend. Sitting down finally Rhys slid the glass to Vaughn, the moisture against his wood desk masked the awkwardness as well as the bottle cork’s bang.

“Happy New Year!” Vaughn said triumphantly with a loving grin as he raised his glass.

“It’s not the New Year yet…” Fiona replied as she talked into her glass she sipped from, never tasting anything as cool on her tongue before. It had bite, it was sharp and somehow so warming as it hit the back of her throat.

“Yeah, but- I mean. Close enough, right?” Vaughn chuckled meekly.

Rhys checked his watch, a lavish piece of silver strapped to his wrist, unintentionally flaunting it whenever it was exposed from the confines of his suit jacket. “One minute…” He answered with a click of his mouth.

“Well, I’m feeling nice. Happy. For once. It’s just right that we finally get to do this together!” Sasha was equally as chirpy if only to mask the disappointment she and her sister were still on Pandora when they’d rather be anywhere the champagne came from. A real vineyard over bathtub gin. “We’re family after all-”

“One small troubled family with Vaughn playing the role of the uncle who only shows up on holidays…” Fiona mocked in a low and quite voice, earning a reaction from no one, the other three wanting to avoid any rows or petty disputes.

It felt like the air had been sucked out of the room as the thick cloud of reality replaced it. Only a minute to go, enough time for Rhys to push his chair next to his old partner in crime, to her surprise.

“We aren’t going to talk, we aren’t going to move, we are just going to be grateful for fifty seconds. After that, we start fresh and drink ourselves into an early death, alright?” Rhys ordered in a laugh.

The rest nodded, Vaugh leaning back in the chair, looking confidently at the wall, just thinking of whatever could come next.

Sasha rubbed condensation off her glass patiently, occasionally able to muster up the strength to swallow.

And Fiona just looked at the bubbles rising in her drink while Rhys looked at her, that solemn look back.

“I’m sorry, Fiona.” He whispered.

“I…” She started, thinking of her next words. “I know. I just don’t know why… All this money, all your charity and you can’t even get me or Sasha off this planet.”

Rhys sniffed a little, looking into the sides of her eyes. “Isn’t it obvious why?”

Fiona just looked up at him, her eyes red. Because he was right. It was obvious.

“I am not losing you.” 

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: http://ao3-pseudonaut.tumblr.com/


	3. Tease

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uhh....Fiona flirting with Rhys and 'teasing' him until he takes her on his desk? Idk haha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: http://ao3-pseudonaut.tumblr.com/

“Who’d have thought…” Fiona scoffed as she half-marveled at the immaculate office of pearlescent, ebony tiling she stood in, yet, did not fit. 

Rhys couldn’t decide whether to scowl or smirk at her comment, masked in doubt and snide contempt. He sat at his desk, hands outstretched, fingers both metal and flesh tracing across the gloss of black that composed it’s frame, matching the room. Caked in a luxury she could only dream of. One he had dreamed of all his life. 

He bit down quickly, chewing the thin air between his perfectly aligned teeth. Natural or fake was a secret also staying shut in his mouth. “Is that doubt or amazement?”

“Hm? Oh, I think you know the answer to that, sweetheart.” 

“You’re right. You are _that_ predictable.” With a sharp breath out his nose Rhys leaned back.

“Well, I’m just glad you’re finally managing to keep up.” Fiona replied bitterly whilst her back was turned to him. It masked her scowling expression. “Just in time, it seems. Must be so hard for you having such a big job.” She said in a voice she’d use to talk to a child, it’s echo across the room made the words sting harsher.

“I’d like to see you do better.”

“No thanks.” She chuckled, “Probably too good. Besides, I can’t wait for the day you finally crack under pressure.” Fiona’s sentence hissed off her tongue like oil on a hot flame.

Those fingers of his, trailing the work-space now tapped in an out of motion rhythm on the edge of that desk, each tap pushing him to his own edge, and seemingly, fueling her to go further. 

She sat on the desk without approval, letting out a sultry, low hum in his direction, tickling his eardrums, fuming and ringing from her doubt. Rhys cleared his throat slightly in between the rest of the noise, his eyes, masked with tired black bags hung half closed.

“Stressed?” Fiona whispered.

“Very.”

“Tired?”

“Exhausted.”

“Maybe go home early, I’m sure someone else can take your job,”

Rhys groaned in a guttural disgust from the back of his throat. “No-”

“Anyone…” Fiona interrupted to finish her sentence. The woman was still smiling as she looked up from the desk, the heel of her dirty leather boot tapping thunderously loud, like a storm against his desk.

Each pulse of the loud sound drove him as mad as she did, each thump waking him from a dreary blink, a millisecond of escape as his own finger tapping ceased. His sleeves folded as his arms retreated back into his body, the man leaning back in his chair and pressing his palms together, using his thumbs to cradle his chin.

Fiona kept teasing, “Secretary? Maybe.”

Not in agreement, but in acknowledgment, an attempt to stop her from speaking Rhys nodded in reply.

“What about a robot?” She said, upbeat and a little louder. “Think they’d be able to tell the difference?!”

“Please just be quiet.” He begged as her thumping consisted.

Leaning forward and turning around to half face him she spoke as clear as she could. “…The Janitor?”

A quiver ran up his spine as he snarled, his hands turned into balled fists as his real arm raised up quickly and hit back down hard on his desk, shaking it and cutting off her barrage of bangs with his own, a pained noise escaping past his gritted white teeth.

Fiona reacted with a jump, now as still as a statue. What pissed Rhys off the most is that there wasn’t a twinge of regret across her made-up face. He covered his mouth with his free, metal hand in an attempted to stop his angrily trembling lips. A second later he was up, standing, breathing audibly hard through his nose as his footsteps were now echoing as he darted to confront her.

His shining clean spats squeaked as his movements halted, now only inches from her. Rhys slammed his hands down on either side of her, feeling warmth from her body and her steady breath. Fiona was so calm and collected compared to the company man.

“Janitor it is then-” She tested further before his hands pushed her back against the desk, causing her white banded hat to fall and slide onto his chair.

Any attempt to retrieve it were abruptly stopped when he pinned her arms by her sides, his fingernails rubbing against the fabric of her crimson jacket. Fiona swallowed hard, that smirk never leaving her face, as if she was trying to inch him closer to the edge.

Rhys leaned in closer to her, their noses almost touching, eyesight blurred from their distance breaking. “Fuck you.” He snarled, the man sounding much more timid than he hoped for.

“Shut the hell up, asshole.” Fiona laughed, her chest movement caused her to squirm a little to make herself more comfortable, purring giddily from his breath on her ruby lips that were coated in poison.

It was his turn to laugh now, as hoarse and weak as it was, “You just try and make me!” His voice turned into a yelled as he gripped her tighter.

Her emerald tinted eyes relaxed as she jutted her head forward awkwardly, pressing her lips into his. Rhys hadn’t felt the hot pang of poison in his boiling blood yet, so with a now loosened grip he gave in and gave back to his partner’s whim. Mouth locked and eyes squeezed shut, melting into one another. The lips of a pampered life clashed with a pair cut by sand and lies.

Instead of a grasp on her arms, Rhys moved to her white pants that so temptingly hugged legs wrapped around his waist. Fiona’s hand aided him in peeling away her trousers until they reached her knees, the other hand fumbling at the soft chair behind her, grabbing her hat and placing it where it belonged.

Fiona moved her legs to the ground allowing Rhys to step closer and pull her against his ever tightening pants. She felt a warm hardness pressing against her now wet folds. The pants that once blocked his entrance were now reaching her boots and scrapping across the back of his black shirt. He was confined to her.

She broke apart from the kiss to grab his vest, her expressions mixing from a smug readiness to a grinning amalgamation of stimulus and heat. A purr replaced what could have been a sentence from her breathless mouth, earning the same amount of effort back from her partner’s high pitch hum. His hand’s snailing to unbutton his fly and zip, the noise added to the anticipation, so needing some release he didn’t even pull his pants down, just unsheathing his cock as quick as he could. Fiona’s eyes were glued to the stiffness now entering her slowly, Rhys biting his inner-lip gently as a tight feeling of pleasure in his waist took him over.

The con artist’s free hand was on his real wrist, mouth gaping slightly as her love began thrusting steadily into her. With each push the more her pleasure built, with each harder movement of the desk they caused, the more Fiona’s smugness grew. She was his, finally, her love exploding in their minds in a biopsy Fiona let them share. Her eyes, were glistening and locked to his and Rhys had smiled for the first time in a long while. It didn’t cover his pink blush painting the man’s face, despite him leading this dance. 

Her moans took over the scraping of the table legs, her quim accepting him, their bodies entwined as time either stopped or feel to their whim. Their climaxes crescendo felt so close but so far, neither Rhys or Fiona wanted their position to end, both finally where they wanted to be, ready to cum. She was enjoying living in the lapse of a luxury, and he was finally, with all their build-up, letting someone share it with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: http://ao3-pseudonaut.tumblr.com/


	4. 3 Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt for anon: maybe following that theme if you want something just highlighting the Rhys and Fiona’s age difference

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: ao3-pseudonaut.tumblr.com

Fiona whistled wryly as she leaned against the lonely wind turbine that had long stopped swaying peacefully against the sand. Her yes pinned on Rhys’ frame as it scurried through the desert like a lizard looking for water. Only that oasis of water was oil, and the others waiting on them in a sun baked caravan had better pray the couple’s efforts wouldn’t lead to a mirage.

“What are you even doing over there?” She laughed a little, interrupting her tune and gaining his attention.

The man, suit stuck to his skin slumped down, out of breath, happy is sand would replace it. “I’m looking for gas!” He called back.

She puckered her lips, tilting her head forward, judging, her hat moving with it to cool her face from the heat. “Are you planning on digging for it?” Fiona quipped, half seriously.

Rhys groaned loudly, treading slowly back towards the woman, her shadow practically looming over him despite her size. He slowly sat, rubbing his hand over his face in defeat.

“Well? What have you been doing?” He huffed in a pout.

Fiona rolled her eyes, “I’ve been siphoning motor oil from a battery in this wind turbine for about…half an hour?”

“Those things run on motor oil?”

“Sometimes, yeah.”

“Isn’t that seems massively counter productive.”

“Were you expecting a wind turbine for a wind turbine? God, how are you so out of breath and still so young?”

He looked up at her, his suddenly nervous stomach suppressing acid and dropping underneath her splendor. “This is different.”

“What?” Fiona asked.

Rhys replied almost immediately after her syllable, “Not used to you being so – tall.” 

Ears rang as she sensed an opportunity to tease, Fiona’s face twisted into a happy grin, making Rhys gaze into the void of pearly white teeth.

“Well, of course you’re not. So young after all…” She purred.

“Hey,” The younger man interrupted, “I’m three years younger than you. Besides; if I stand, right now, I’m taller than you!”

“Still not older though.”

The hand that was on his face moved to his sand stained knee as he lifted himself up, standing over her proudly, hands on his waist in a triumphant pose. Fiona let out a disgusted noise as she stood on her tip toes, digging them into the dirt beneath her and hoping Rhys wouldn’t notice.

“Hope an old lady like yourself doesn’t stumble, I might have to carry you back.”

She grimaced a little as she tripped on her own feet, clumsily, before regaining normal posture. “Big baby like you is the one who’ll need carrying.”

“I’d like to see you try and get me an inch off the ground.” Rhys snarled playfully.

“See, I’d ask the same if I weren’t so afraid of you dropping me like your pacifier.”

A clash fake blue, brown and green eyes met in a snare, like two cars driving into each-other. Two smiles so close to the other, but so ready to spark with new insults. A rushing of blood into their bodies was drowned out by the sudden lack of rushing from the turbine that towered over the both of them combined, winning the Mexican standoff.

“– You’re such a child.” Fiona hummed, before turning to collect the gas canister of oil.

“Only three years…” Rhys sighed into a laugh under his spent breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: ao3-pseudonaut.tumblr.com


	5. Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ooh u should write a drabble where Rhys has nightmares abt jack and Fiona comforts him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: ao3-pseudonaut.tumblr.com

Ears rang and sweat pooled as Rhys panted and heaved himself awake through flailing arms and heavy breaths. A chill ran down a body that was boiling to the touch as a mass of memories emerged from newly widened eyelids. The tenseness of his muscles and a mouth like cotton did little to nothing to distract his memories of a berserk, blue hologram trying to claw and possess it’s way back into his body.

His body – not a tyrannical corporatist trying to replace his skeleton and knock out his teeth, still crunching and grinding at haunting visions of the mad-man still trying to get him. Every night - on cue.

Breathing was blocked by a knot in his throat, his robotic arm propping him up, having the luxury not to shake violently like the real one that was pressed into Fiona’s side. She somehow slept so soundly on the tattered, half broken bed of her’s they shared. Waking her felt like a crime, whether his arm spasms did it intentionally or not.

She murmured in annoyance at first, before she felt the dampness of the crumpled and strewn across bed-sheets coated in a film of nervous sweat. 

“Rhys? You okay?” Fiona’s hushed words were smooth like the ripple of a tide on layers of sand.

Even only guided by a fading moonlight masked by clouds, she could clearly see him shaking his head quickly.

She inched herself over to him, hands and fingers wrapping around his slumped over shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“Just – had a bad dream… Really bad.” He groaned, trying to sound braver than he felt.

“Wanna talk about it? I’m not sleeping knowing you’re up scaring yourself.”

He looked down at at his now crossed legs, his airwaves clearing slowly just sitting in the dull and numbing silence filling the void of the room.

“…Was it Jack?” Fiona asked once again.

Rhys nodded, shifting his body and the mattress with it.

“Jack’s dead, Rhys. He was dead before you even plugged him into that big, stupid head of yours… You never even knew him.”

“-It doesn’t feel like that.”

The former con-artist placed a hand on his cheek, turning his stiff neck to face her. 

“I would _never_ let him hurt you again. I’d plug myself into you just to tear him out if that’s what it took. And when you’re lying in bed, and you even think about that tiny, blue, Hyperion asshole in your mind I _need_ you to know my arms are always around you.”

Before he could reply, Fiona gingerly leaned over to kiss the side of his ear before standing up and moving to grab a bottle of scotch from a wooden drawer where it clearly did not belong. Like a CEO in a cramped bedroom.

“Now… Since we aren’t sleeping…” She purred, shaking the bottle teasingly and turning a lamp on to let the orange liquid shimmer in the yellow tinted light. Ready to share a drink as stiff as his neck.

Maybe Rhys’ body was someone else’s after-all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: ao3-pseudonaut.tumblr.com


	6. Wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Might just continue this more sometime.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: ao3-pseudonaut.tumblr.com

With both of their hands elapsed, neither one could tell who it was that was trembling. Maybe it was both? It didn’t matter, it changed absolutely nothing, and neither of them wanted anymore change anytime soon. A worn, old veil passed as a layer of protection from the overly happy crowd, whose gaze filled Fiona’s own eyes with tears.

If he wore the black tuxedo he wore now on any other day; no one would know the difference compared to his normal attire. That was okay. Rhys wasn’t expecting things to be formal anyway.

But as a pastor preaching whatever religion he wanted filled the church they both realized it truly didn’t matter and it truly changed nothing. The moment they shared two rings and spoke two magic words each – they’d spend the rest of their lives together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: ao3-pseudonaut.tumblr.com


	7. Borderlands Summer Bingo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: ao3-pseudonaut.tumblr.com
> 
> Bingo: https://bl-summer-bingo.tumblr.com/

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Rhys always thought Pandora was hot. White, blinding sun scorching until even his sweat could boil. But that was before he went off planet. And now he was stuck in patterned hammock that soaked in the heat, turning him to a starfish on glass. 

He didn’t expect a business trip to be so mundane or hot. But he had company, even more than the beach goers bustling in bare feet kicking at grains of sand or doing as he did. When in Rome. Except his Rome was a furnace and he was trapped with a friend who insisted she came along.

It was nice though. The excitement of Fiona’s face alone when he told her the company brought two tickets, not expecting the head of ATLAS to be a bachelor. Vaughn was his first choice, naturally. But his best bro had gone too local since the Vault. 

Or that’s what Rhys told himself to avoid the fact they’d both be shirtless and his friend’s abs made him jealous. The popsicle he sucked on occasionally would be a bitter attempt at keeping his mouth shut.

So here he was, blanketed by rays and unable to even check if he was gaining a tan. A state of ecstasy amidst the crashing of the bluest waves and children laughing. He lost track of his companion about as much as he had lost track of time. But considering how they were both unable to swim for different reasons she mustn’t have gotten far.

Though saying that, seventy percent of the planet was a beach.

Must have a hell of a lot of lifeguard tower. Feeling the shadow of the large, white wooden frame of one his hammock was stretch out and tied to tickle his toes was a small comfort.

It hadn’t occurred to Rhys that Fiona couldn’t swim. But that was okay, neither could he on the risk of rusting his cybernetics. She was too good for Pandora. And even in the chaos of noise he could still hear her sigh. A shadow of surfers, one with waves, shadowing snorkelers themselves, stood Fiona. The only relief of the heat for her would be from the children’s water balloons.

Through the sour taste of his lemonade’s travelling up his straw, cooling his lips as it passed to wash along his tongue, and past the thick, charred tinted smoke that rippled and cut the air like a waterfall. He heard her.

“Nice to see you’re still in your natural environment.”

“Hm?”

“I was just thinking that even when you aren’t getting any work done you still find time to sit on your ass.” Fiona teased.

Rhys smiled a bit, “What else can I do?” He stuffed the popsicle into his mouth, already dry from talking. 

Fiona sighed, dropping a bucket and walking closer to her friend who was too sun struck to even look at her. “I’m building a sandcastle. Could use some help-”

“A ‘and’astle?” Rhys mocked her with his mouth full before finally sitting up with a groan, feeling a breeze brush behind him. 

The stick of flavored ice fell from a gaping jaw as he finally saw Fiona’s beach attire. A white sunhat dotted with flowers that looked pressed from it’s ware shaded her smirk, a tattered but finely laced bikini top that no Pandoran had the right to wear. Unless they were a thief of course.

“Wh-Where did you get the drink?” He croaked.

“Well, you can take a girl out of Pandora but you can’t take the Pandora out  the girl…” She practically sang her confession.

“I didn’t know they made shorts that…”

“Short?” Fiona finished his sentence, taking some pleasure in his unexpected reaction as she ran her free hand over her jean shorts.

“You look amazing.” Rhys gasped.

For some reason, with all the teasing aside, his reaction that was so genuine and so shocked had taken Fiona aback. She was sure if she could blush against the heat she would.

“Thanks, Rhys…” She said with a grin, finally earning the same back from him. Fiona took a long sip from her drink, the rim of salt not aiding already dry lips, just waiting for him to say anything.

He cleared his throat, “Burning daylight… And I guess we are on a beach…” A robotic gaze now looking at the wide sandcastle his thief was constructing.

Fiona tried not to look giddy as she dragged him up from his hammock and finally stood him up. Feeling something cold against the sole of his bare right foot.

“Did you just step in your popsicle?” She asked, an eyebrow raised as she watched his expression contort.

“Of course.” He replied with a nod, not wanting to look down.

“Want to just…forget that happened?”

“Yep.” Rhys whined before making his way to her grand granular palace with the architect by his side.

It wasn’t long before he was back on his knees, close to her again. But now the warmth on his skin felt deeper, bubbling in him. He couldn’t put his mind to what he wanted to say or do with these feelings. Unable to tell if he was the shark ready to strike a prey that paled in comparison or if it were the other way round.

This was an odd contrast to the activity of shoveling sand into cubes. But she just looked so happy.

“Why sandcastles?” He asked.

“I dunno. Guess me and Sasha never could find any sand that didn’t have blood on it back home.” Fiona’s sarcasm was bordering on honesty, a fact she was perfectly aware of. 

“It’s kinda adorable.” 

She scoffed, “Shut up…” Fiona placed her bucket onto the large and wide array of cubes varying in size, peeling it back to reveal the top of the spire of her castle. “Buy me a real castle, that’d be adorable.”

“Only the biggest palace.” Rhys chuckled, “Cathedrals beat back gardens anyhow.”

“Bet you say that to all the girls.” She watched him in the corner of her practically mirage filtered view.

His tone went a little meeker from embarrassment. “You’d be surprised.” 

They continued to work as the sun, filling the sky uninterrupted from any clouds slowly set and the ocean swallowed it whole. The couple sharing glances, smiles and stories before the tide came in further to sweep away their creation. The appeal of building it had long been taken by the growing shallows that ate away at the golden, sun baked sand.

If the two of them had seen a brighter blood orange explode across a canvas of blue in their life as the sun set they’d be lying. And even as it fully set the humidity and the beach goers stayed. And it wasn’t long before Rhys’ hand was gripped protectively around Fiona’s.

“Want to just- I dunno…stargaze?” Rhys offered sheepishly.

“Sounds romantic.” Fiona purred.

“I mean, that was the point, yeah.” 

The humidity Fiona felt was minuscule compared to the fire brewing in her heart at his honeyed words. ”Lie down? With you?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not looking to get sand in my shorts, Rhys.” Mentally she screamed at herself not to avoid this opportunity.

“Sand dunes over there are grass. Besides, they’re higher up, we’ll get a better view.”

Fiona sighed before standing, their hands clasped causing him to do the same. They both briskly made their way past other couples doing the same as they about to, leaving footprints the two of them weren’t expecting to be paired. 

But they made it, sweating but laying on the cooling grass that tickled the back of their heads. Hands still unable to let go of the other. And as she looked up at the view, he couldn’t. The stars shone and multiplied in the sky like a firework display, the colors dancing, mingling and making friends. Or maybe it was fireworks. Because, at this point Rhys found watching the reflection of lights in her eyes, like a crackling blaze, far more enchanting than he ever could if he just looked up.

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: ao3-pseudonaut.tumblr.com
> 
> Bingo: https://bl-summer-bingo.tumblr.com/

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: http://ao3-pseudonaut.tumblr.com/


End file.
